posted
I know it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things but there is a poll at http://ninemsn.com.au - there's a link just under the main head-lines. It says "do you think that the space-shuttle missions should be discontinued" or something. Of course I, and a lot of others said 'no'.
posted
So, anybody know how long the ISS can survive without the shuttle?
Supply flights for crew and consumables could presumably be handled by Soyuz TM and TMA and Progress craft, provided the US starts to pour tankerloads of dollars to the Russians. And the station can manage on what she's got so far, structurally speaking. But a Soyuz or a Progress can't do orbital boosting the way a shuttle could, nor deliver a dedicated booster package. (A Proton or Ariane 5 probably could launch a booster module, but who'd let the upper stages of either of those firecrackers anywhere near the station's orbit?)
How often does one have to do "decay management" on the orbit?
Here's wondering if the situation will force NASA to conclude "Well, we didn't find anything specific wrong with the STS, so we're resuming launches and crossing our fingers" after a year or so.
First, money. NASA is given $15 billion every year since 1992. This budget doesn't take into account differences in the value of the dollar. So, NASA is receiving less this year than in 1992.
Second, safety. The Columbia astronauts were dead the minute they left their orbit and headed home. NASA had no backup plan. The shuttle couldn't dock at the station, the astronauts couldn't evacuate the shuttle for lack of space suits, and they couldn't wait for aid for the next mission isn't planned until March. Furthermore, NASA control managers were complacent. One sensor fails they figure no worries. Several go out they figure we worry. In 1962, when John Glenn did orbital flight above the Earth, a single sensor failed. NASA moved quickly to abort the flight and determine the best way to get Glenn home.
Third, training and experience. Simply put, both are in short supply. They don't have the people to build a new shuttle. I figure if you don't have the means to build a new shuttle, you don't have the means to repair an older shuttle.
Fourth, a pattern of escalating failures. There have been warnings of impending failure to the program over the past years. These have included wiring issues, a broken fuel line at the launch pad, delayed launches related to mechanical issues, and the like. Additionally, the facilities are not being maintained. I have also been reading of mechanical failues on aboard the ISS. This is a new facility and she is already showing signs of serious failures. In the last, the ISS's atmospherics failed and the station was heating up fast. The problem was fixed, but my question is, what will be the next issue and will the crew be able to fix it or will it cost them their lives?
Fifth, no plans for a second generation shuttle or no money for the X-38. The space plane, designed by the USAF and with NASA assistance, is awaiting budget approval.
Finally, there are only two real partners in the space station program-Russia and the US. Russia is very poor and is unable to afford to build more Soyuz craft. The Soyuz craft in operation are very old and not in the best of shape. There is a timeline for the end of construction for these vechicles which is approaching fast. (Europe is providing less, and Japan has stopped building a majority of her sections. The remaining sections were completed before the stop order.)
Many of these problems and others have been raised in official government publications, including one released the day before the accident by the GAO.
Unless more money is provided to NASA, I think it's best to cancel the manned programs and continue with the unmanned programs. The space program has never been a top priority, contrary to what our president has said, and has received only a small percentage of the total funds available.
I know many of you wax poetically about the excitement of space travel and how we should continue in the names of those died. I agree we should go further, but only after a nation has committed its resources and people to the space program. A space program shouldn't be used to continue our presence in space. It should be used to advance mankind. At this time, I feel our space program is more for the former rather than the latter.
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
The second generation shuttle, VentureStar, is being worked on as we speak. It is being built privately by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. The X-33 (not X-38) was merely a 1/2 scale prototype that was cancelled.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, despite the STS being an inescapable deathtrap, spaceflight has never been as safe as it is now. Loss of life per flight or per astronaut or per hour in space is going down fast, and would keep on going down if the shuttles kept on flying at the current risk levels.
And keeping on flying isn't just making things safer in the statistics-subterfuge sense. Deaths and lesser accidents force improvements in safety procedures and equipment. The shuttle failed to have evac systems because it didn't suffer accidents, and because the Apollo/Saturn stack didn't. Had, say, Apollo 15 gone up in a great ball of flame, we'd have a safer shuttle - even if it was first built in 1999.
Also, repeated accidents might drive home the point that spaceflight ain't cheap. It won't produce a profit, and it won't stay within budget. If you want to play, you must be prepared to waste at least tens of billions in various accidents every decade. Once you are resigned to that, then you can have a meaningful space policy.
posted
My point is, NASA needs more money, not less, for the manned space program. Each year, the agency is given less money and compromises are made in an effort to balance the budget. These compromises are now endangering lives.
I support the goal of space exploration, but not at the cost of lives as a result of cutting corners. Columbia's crew died not because of stress fatigue, but because of decisions made by bureacrats and number punchers in the day-to-day functions of the agency.
Unless NASA is given a larger budget and the budget is supervised by an outside committee, I fear we will lose one of the other three shuttles.
As for the vehicle mentioned earlier, I have heard a launch date of 2010, if the project is completed on time. This gives us 8 years in which another shuttle may be lost. (Wolf 359-The Venture Star was the name of the project cancelled.)
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
1) I don't think the physics of reentering the atmosphere give a damn about 'bureacrats and number punchers'. The shuttle was destroyed because of an accident, not because someone in the government said so. Quite frankly, there was nothing that could have been done to avoid this. Yes, granted, maybe they could have had an alternative, but they didn't know that anything was that wrong in the first place.
2) Read my name better
3) NASA cancelled its funding of the X-33 prototype. The X-33 was, as I said before, a 1/2 scale prototype of the VentureStar, which would become the next generation shuttle. Lockheed Martin has decided to continue work on the VentureStar (but abandon the X-33) even after NASA pulled out their funding. VentureStar is now a private, civilian project.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
You do know that the forces Columbia was subjected to were so extreme there was NO way her spaceframe could possibly have remained intact, wether NASA was on a tight budget or not? That extensive re-entry simulations didn't show anything out of the ordinary despite the damaged/missing tiles? That the astronauts who board those shuttles take many calculated risks they fully understand and accept each and every time? That a safety record of two fatal accidents in over twenty years and more than a hundred missions during which literally MILLIONS of things can go wrong, is unparalelled?
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I am opposed to NASA. I wasn't always this way. When I was younger, I was very supportive of our space program. However, over the past few years and having read countless articles on the program, I grown more hostile. I see an agency running on fumes. They are using antiquated machinery which can be bought on-line from E-Bay and other computer junkyard stores. Their facilites are degrading and their best people are leaving for lucrative jobs in the private sector. They no longer have the ability to build a second replacement shuttle for the knowledge and materials aren't available.
I say very clearly that I blame the officials at NASA for their incompetence in running the program, and their incompetence has played a contributing factor in the loss of seven lives. (Accidents are the result of many factors. From the accidents I have read or heard about, one of the factors which contribute greatly to an accident is one of mismanagement of money. If X had put more money into this Y (thing, system, etc.), the accident wouldn't have occured.)
I know many of you support space exploration. But, please take off the blinders. This program is in serious trouble and no amount of evasion by you will hide that fact. There are reports by the GAO and commissions which show an agency in desperate need of a fix. Would you be as forgiving if an airline company had let an airplane filled with passengers be destroyed by the stresses and pressures of the stratosphere if you knew the airline was in financial trouble and had sent the airplane knowng there might be potential dangers in flying an aging plane whose last overall was cancelled due to budgetary concerns? I wouldn't be, nor should you.
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I don't care if you pour a trillion dollars into NASA, the Columbia would still have been lost.
And, *gasp*, I can tell you every damn plane in the sky right now runs a risk of crashing to the ground in a giant fireball because of any number of mechical failures. Do we still get on them anyway? Hell yes. Some of those planes up in the sky are the same age as the Space Shuttle. Hell, some where designed before the Space Shuttle was even designed herself.
Finally, Columbia was overhauled in 1999, and this was only its 2nd mission since that overhaul, so you can just scratch that statement out right now.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
The skilled workforces exist... overseas. The material and manufacturing exist. overseas.
This is what happens when you aloud an uncontrolled bleed. Job-loss after layoff after cutback after downsizing... We're rapidly becoming a nation of StarBucks and BurgerKings. In 20 years "Skilled Labor" will be the person who adjusts the esspresso maker. Within 30 years there will be no more american manufacturing.
My sister summed it up quite nice... "the space shuttle was in orbit? Whatever."
We need to get serious with the space-program. THIS TIME it came down without any loss of life on the ground. Next time it could be worse than 9-11.
-------------------- Like A Bat Out Of Hell...
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Lockheed Martin is NOT working on X-33, that program along with the Venture Star successor is dead. Contractors simply cannot afford to continue work on multi-billion dollar programs without government contracts or a clear purpose of the craft's usefulness, NEITHER of which the X-33 has.
Even before the end of X-33 the contractors were aware of problems that were going to make it unusable as originally intended (e.g. material issues with the aerospike engines and the decision to make the payload bay an external pod). Immediately before program termination, the contractors were actively looking at making the vehicle a two stage to orbit vehicle with strap on liquid rockets...effectivly negating its orginal mission of single-stage-to-orbit. We just weren't ready for X-33.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote: A NASA team inspected Enterprise a few years back at the Smithsonian... it's in suprisingly good condition, and they determined it could be used for parts if the need should arise, or even be modified to flight status if it was really needed.
Enterprise should be made ready to fly at short notice, as a rescue plan. It wouldn't need any bells and whistles. Just enough to get into orbit, be able to dock with the space station, and come back.
The news is saying that the station personel are good till June, and that the Russians can resupply them if nessessary.
quote: I am opposed to NASA. I wasn't always this way. When I was younger, I was very supportive of our space program. However, over the past few years and having read countless articles on the program, I grown more hostile. I see an agency running on fumes. They are using antiquated machinery which can be bought on-line from E-Bay and other computer junkyard stores. Their facilites are degrading and their best people are leaving for lucrative jobs in the private sector. They no longer have the ability to build a second replacement shuttle for the knowledge and materials aren't available.
I say very clearly that I blame the officials at NASA for their incompetence in running the program, and their incompetence has played a contributing factor in the loss of seven lives. (Accidents are the result of many factors. From the accidents I have read or heard about, one of the factors which contribute greatly to an accident is one of mismanagement of money. If X had put more money into this Y (thing, system, etc.), the accident wouldn't have occured.)
I know many of you support space exploration. But, please take off the blinders. This program is in serious trouble and no amount of evasion by you will hide that fact. There are reports by the GAO and commissions which show an agency in desperate need of a fix. Would you be as forgiving if an airline company had let an airplane filled with passengers be destroyed by the stresses and pressures of the stratosphere if you knew the airline was in financial trouble and had sent the airplane knowng there might be potential dangers in flying an aging plane whose last overall was cancelled due to budgetary concerns? I wouldn't be, nor should you.
This is just so much B.S. NASA's budget has gone up by 600,000,000 in each of the last two years. The best and brightest may not always go to NASA, but it is not easy to get into space. They can and do pick and chose Astronauts.
Columbia was the first of the shuttles to reach space, and completed 27 missions, out of 28. That includes being strapped to a giant Hydrogen bomb and two boosters every trip, and following the very small corridor coming back, and falling out of the sky, evey time. It's a bigger wonder that there hasn't been more accidents. There have been so few because our people are very very good at what they do. We are the only ones to come close to making it work. The Russians never did get there version to go. Columbia had a major overhaul before this flight. The overhaul includes checking for metal fatigue, and updating electronics. It was as safe as it could be.
The Shuttle is a wonder all by it's self. It gets shot into space like a rocket, acts as a space station in orbit, becomes a capsule on reentry, then a glider, or a brick with wings that has managed to land 111 times out of 112, not counting Challenger, which didn't get the chance to land.
Anyone who expects space exploration to be safe is a fool. Maybe in 300 or so years, we'll have the technology to make it safe, but for right now, we have what we have.
As for E-Bay, someone from NASA confirmed that at some point they had bought some things online that were better priced then what they could get by their regular connections. They did not buy "junk" but good useable parts. More power to them if they can do just as well, and save a few bucks.
quote: I know many of you support space exploration. But, please take off the blinders. This program is in serious trouble and no amount of evasion by you will hide that fact. There are reports by the GAO and commissions which show an agency in desperate need of a fix.
That may have been true in the post Challenger 80's, but I think they have solved a lot of those problems, under the current administration. There may stil be problems, but there are always problems to solve, and always will be.
There are just to many benifits to stop now. Every time you use a calculator, or have a medical test, or use a fast, up to date computer, you can safly bet that the Space Program has contributed to that in one way or another.
-------------------- Sparky:: Think! Question Authority, Authoritatively. “Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” EMSparks
Shalamar: To save face, keep lower half shut.
Registered: Jun 1999
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